Dude. Take it easy. Move on to the next story or the next publication. This piece was incredibily helpful to me as it obviously was to others. Seriously, how much are you paying for the content? Idiots? How about you write the next story, I'm guessing you must be some kind of expert.

To the writer/reporter. Outstanding. I would never know if you didn't write about it. Keep on keepin' on.

These opt outs are great as long as you know about them. This article was needed as I didn't know about all of them. The other thing is you hope that if you do opt out you actually are. We have seen that with Facebook before.

You are the same type of people who blissfully hand over your entire life to Facebook without complaining, but call services like google (search, maps, mail, checkout etc) that actually help you get things done as "thugs". Shame on you.

1. Use Self Destructing Cookies plugin for Firefox. This way my activity is not tracked extensively.
2. When web page or an app asks permission to use location I politely say no and then provide zip code.
3. Never use my social network logins on another site.

Thank you for this information. I appreciate companies are motivated to make money, but automatically opting users in until they opt out is very underhanded. It's all a little too much 'Big Brother' these days for my liking!

The use of social media for a host of business purposes is rising. Indeed, social is quickly moving from cutting edge to business basic. Organizations that have so far ignored social - either because they thought it was a passing fad or just didnít have the resources to properly evaluate potential use cases and products - must start giving it serious consideration.

Social media is critical in the age of digital business. How can IT help? First, work with the marketing team to set up social networking programs on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, at minimum. Then work to put social media sentiment analytics in place to measure success.